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Sebastian Raisch
Title
Prof. Dr.
Last Name
Raisch
First name
Sebastian
Email
sebastian.raisch@unisg.ch
Phone
+41 71 224 3912
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1 - 10 of 73
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PublicationManaging Persistent Tensions on the Frontline: A Configurational Perspective on AmbidexterityAmbidexterity research has noted that firms’ simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation causes organizational tensions that are difficult to resolve. To make these tensions manageable, scholars have generally suggested that senior managers take the central role in designing organizational solutions, such as the structural separation or contextual integration of the exploratory and exploitative tasks. Yet, in an inductive study of ten corporate innovation initiatives, we find that our informants assigned far less importance to the senior managers’ initial design choices than to the frontline managers’ subsequent configurational practices. Frontline managers used these practices to constantly adapt and align their initiatives’ organizational contexts, which allowed them to cope with persistent exploration-exploitation tensions in their daily business activities. Based on these empirical insights and drawing on paradox theory, we develop a configurational perspective on ambidexterity, where frontline managers play a more central, proactive, and strategic role than purported by the established design perspective on ambidexterity.Type: journal articleJournal: Journal of management studies : JMSVolume: 55Issue: 5DOI: 10.1111/joms.12311
Scopus© Citations 122 -
PublicationHow Do Firms Adapt to Discontinuous Change? : Bridging the Dynamic Capabilities and Ambidexterity Perspectives(Haas School of Business, University of California, 2016-08-01)
Scopus© Citations 217 -
PublicationHow Is Ambidexterity Initiated? : The Emergent Charter Definition ProcessAmbidexterity research has presented a range of structural and contextual approaches for implementing a dual orientation across organizations. Much less is known about the preceding process through which organizations decide to adopt an ambidextrous orientation. In this paper we focus on this first step-the charter definition process through which the activities and responsibilities of an organizational unit are agreed. Most prior studies implicitly assume that senior executives at some point identify the need to become ambidextrous and subsequently design supportive structures and contexts to implement their choice. Based on an inductive multilevel case study of four alliances, we show how this mandated (or top-down) charter definition process can be complemented with an alternative emergent (or bottom-up) charter definition process in which frontline managers take the initiative to adopt an ambidextrous orientation in their part of the organization. This emergent process is important because it enables frontline managers to respond in a timely manner to changing requirements of which senior executives are still unaware. We use the findings from our case study to develop potentially generalizable observations on the level of initiation, the tensions, the management approaches to deal with the tensions, and the outcomes that characterize this emergent charter definition process. We then put forward a multilevel process framework of how organizations initiate an ambidextrous orientation, and we discuss theoretical implications for the general ambidexterity literature, the nascent dynamic view on ambidexterity, and the broader research on how charters in organizations evolve.Type: journal articleJournal: Organization ScienceVolume: 26Issue: 4
Scopus© Citations 129 -
PublicationCreating Societal Benefits and Corporate Profits(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014)
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PublicationFührung im Wandel : Sind Visionäre oder Pragmatiker erfolgreicher?(Verl.-Gruppe Handelsblatt, 2011-06-22)
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PublicationType: journal articleJournal: OrganisationsentwicklungIssue: 3
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PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Harvard Business ManagerIssue: 10
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PublicationOrganizational Ambidexterity: Balancing Exploitation and Exploration for Sustained PerformanceOrganizational ambidexterity has emerged as a new research paradigm in organization theory, yet several issues fundamental to this debate remain controversial. We explore four central tensions here: Should organizations achieve ambidexterity through differentiation or through integration? Does ambidexterity occur at the individual or organizational level? Must organizations take a static or dynamic perspective on ambidexterity? Finally, can ambidexterity arise internally, or do firms have to externalize some processes? We provide an overview of the seven articles included in this special issue and suggest several avenues for future research.Type: journal articleJournal: Organization ScienceVolume: 20Issue: 4
Scopus© Citations 1498 -
PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Harvard Business ReviewVolume: 87Issue: 10
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PublicationBalanced Structures: Designing Organizations for Profitable GrowthCompanies strive for profitable growth in their quest to create superior returns for their shareholders. Profitable growth requires an organizational design that pursues seemingly contradictory demands: mechanistic structures to ensure the efficient exploitation of existing capabilities, and organic structures to enable the exploration of new growth opportunities. Researchers have suggested a range of ‘balanced' structural concepts to reconcile these conflicting requirements at the corporate level. The solutions include temporarily cycling through different structures (temporal separation), creating differentiated units (structural separation), and enabling employees to move back and forth between different structures (parallel structures). While theoretical concepts have been presented for balanced structures, much less is known about how organizations deploy and execute these solutions. In this article, data from an inductive study of six leading Central European companies are used to explore the specific conditions under which different structural solutions were adopted, the strategies deployed to execute these solutions, and the learning outcomes that resulted from their implementation. The organizations observed in this study used the three balanced design options as complementary rather than mutually exclusive solutions. The solutions were deployed in different contexts and contributed to different learning outcomes. While the solutions all combined exploitation and exploration activities to some extent, each solution addressed different dimensions of these learning processes. The process model of balanced structural designs, presented in this article, provides insights into the structural solutions that may be most appropriate given the requirements of specific situations. Four general design rules are presented to support practitioners in the successful execution of balanced structures.Type: journal articleJournal: Long Range PlanningVolume: 41Issue: 5
Scopus© Citations 102